When I was a kid, I owned two goldfish that eventually outgrew the size of their tank. At the time, I didn’t realize just how much actually goes into having fish and keeping them healthy. I’ve learned a lot over the past couple of years while keeping nano fish — a group of five celestial pearl danios and four corydoras habrosus — along with some live plants.
After filling up a 10-gallon tank with water and adding a filter, I was eager to add my first fish, but I soon found out that the tank must run without fish for several weeks to establish beneficial bacteria and create a stable underwater environment. But the work doesn’t stop there. Caring for fish means frequently testing the parameters of their water and performing water changes every couple of weeks, as any chemical imbalance can harm them. Fish are also sensitive to temperature and light, not to mention that you have to be careful not to feed them too much or too little.
Image: Emma Roth / The Verge
Over time, I’ve decided to upgrade parts of my aquarium with some new tech aimed at improving my fish’s underwater environment. My setup isn’t anything fancy — and not everything worked the way I expected it to — but it definitely makes fishkeeping a little less stressful.
This fish feeder from Petbank has become a lifesaver when I go on vacation. While it can only store up to 15 meals, it offers plenty of scheduling options that you can use to choose how often you feed your fish per day, or spread out your feeding schedule so that it only dispenses food every other day. Though I could’ve gone with a feeder that holds a larger amount of food in a single chamber and dispenses a set amount, some of the reviews on these devices suggested that they might dispense too much food at once, which can degrade water quality and harm fish. I wanted more control over how much it actually dispenses, so I went with Petbank’s, which allows me to add the exact amount of food I want in each individual slot.
This feeder can either suction-cup to the top of your tank or attach to the rim, with the dispenser positioned over the water. It comes with a battery that recharges via USB-C, and it’s supposed to last up to two months on a single charge. So far, I’ve left my fish for two weeks without issue — and the feeder still had a full battery by the time I came back.
Temperature is another key factor to track in your tank. Water that’s too hot or too cold for the type of fish you own can cause stress and potentially even kill them. In the summer, I often notice my tank’s temperature climbing above 80 degrees Fahrenheit — not ideal for my fish, which are happiest in the mid-70s. I began looking for some kind of cooling system and came across aquarium fans on Amazon. While I was a bit skeptical about how well they would work (how could one little fan cool off an entire tank?), I decided to buy one anyway.
This fan clips onto the rim of my tank and can tilt down to point the fan blades toward the water. There’s also a remote attached to the cord, which comes with five speed settings and options for how long the fan should run for. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually works; it cools down my tank by a degree or two in about an hour, and that’s just on the second-slowest fan speed.
I previously used a small, liquid-in-glass thermometer that I suction-cupped to the inside of the tank to monitor my tank’s temperature. I already wasn’t a fan of it because it was so hard to read, but the final straw was when one of my fish got stuck after wedging itself between the aquarium glass and the thermometer. Instead of worrying about the same thing happening to another fish, I got a nifty $10 digital thermometer that sits safely on the outside of the tank and measures the water temperature through the glass.
The thermometer comes with a round display that’s off by default. Tap it, and you can clearly see the tank’s current temperature — no squinting required. The only downside is that you can’t replace the battery, and I’m not sure how long it’s supposed to last. It’s been working fine for me for several months now, but when it eventually runs out, I think I’m going to switch to a rechargeable thermometer instead.
My fish are also sensitive to the cold, which is why I purchased a submersible heater as soon as I started setting up my tank. Admittedly, my 100-watt heater — which is almost as tall as my tank — might be a little too big for my setup, but it still works. You can set your preferred water temperature using the dial at the top of the heater, and it will automatically turn on when the temperature dips below that. While I can’t find the exact heater I purchased from a local pet supply store, this one on Amazon comes pretty close to the one I have.
When I first got my fish tank, I defaulted to using the light that comes attached to the lid. The no-frills light isn’t all that bright and requires you to turn it on and off manually. But eventually, I realized the lid was getting in the way of some of the other devices I had attached to my tank, and if I needed to upgrade, I might as well make the lighting situation a better one for my fish.
My first addition was a timer that would turn the lights on and off at around 8AM and 6PM, but I decided that it would be better for my fish to get a system that doesn’t startle them with sudden lighting changes. This LED light from Hygger has a setting that gradually increases the brightness in the morning and slowly dims it at night, mimicking sunrise and sunset. The light itself spans the length of the tank with a metal bracket that rests on the rim. It comes with a remote that you can use to set an 8-, 10-, or 12-hour timer for the light to turn on and off, as well as a way to adjust the brightness, even beyond the scheduled dawn and twilight.
It’s nice to see the tank light up with a dim reddish hue in the morning before transitioning to a deep blue in the evening. My fish probably appreciated the change, but I soon discovered a big problem that forced me to stop using this feature altogether: algae. Algae loves light, and this specific setting keeps the tank light on for too long, making my tank the perfect environment for the growth of green, wispy strands across my plants and rocks. Unfortunately, I’ve had to switch to using the 8-hour timer, which doesn’t have the cool sunrise / sunset feature, but gradually turns on and off over the course of a minute or so. Bummer!
My next aquarium-related purchase will likely be a camera that sticks to the side of my tank. I think it would be fun to watch my fish swim from my phone and would definitely be reassuring while on vacation. This one from SnapBud on Amazon caught my attention, as it comes with a 3MP 2K lens with an anti-reflective coating to capture activity inside the tank. It also offers some other neat features like local 256GB storage, motion alerts, and full-color night vision (though the company notes it may not work well in complete darkness).